which speaker install is better?

[sparrow]

local church, pi-shaped with 180 degree seating across front stage.
Seating depth is 50-60 feet. Width-80 ft. Ceiling height 30 feet from floor. Seating capacity 300. Acoustically quite neutral, floor carpeted, benches paded, acoustic ceiling tile between cross beam structure. Presently an array of 2-way, 90-60 horned RCA (30 yrs old) are flown slightly ahead of centre stage. Very good, clear speech, but lack musicality. Decision to completely upgrade sound system with Yamaha 36 ch board and P250s amps. One opinion is to replace the old speakers with JBL's newest AE series AC 18/95 (90 X 50 degrees) flown and splayed correctly to cover seating area (as is now). The other opinion is to fly four speakers, evenly spaced across the FOH at the same height, thus-
! v v v v !
No speakers chosen for this as yet.
Which is the better option? Your professional opinions please.

[pdc]

There are many options. You need someone to engineer the system for you. Anyone that has not properly surveyed and modeled the room is making an uneducated guess. While you might think that the room is "neutral", it may not be. In fact, it cannot be verywhere all of the time. No two seats have the same sound quality, frequency response, reflections/delays, etc.

You should get no less than three proposals/bids. The bidders may not all provide the same answers to your specific needs. They all should have references for similar projects. Then you can verify their expertise with those churches.

[Brad Weber]

Issues such as where speakers can actually be mounted, coordination with other building systems (ductwork, lights, pipes, ceiling fans, projection, etc.) and so on can often be difficult to assess from a basic description but could dramatically impact what is practical. Aspects such as the actual seating arrangement, where aisles are located, etc. can also be important.

You mentioned four boxes across or a center array. Is there a particular reason for four across? How many boxes were you considering for a center array? In general, these two approaches both have some typical pros and cons. A center array comes closer to being a single point source, which definitely has some advantages, but the multiple tight packed boxes can result in lobing in the overall array due to interactions between the boxes. The four across approach would probably minimize the levels at the front center of the stage, and thus possibly provide better gain before feedback for critical mics, but may result in overlap and combfiltering for some seating areas. Like so many things, which might be the better option for your application, or perhaps whether there is another option, is dependent upon the details of the situation.

I am not sure how or why you are looking at the JBL AC18/95. Not that it is a bad speaker but your concern with the existing system apparently being the "musicality" and working with a 30' high ceiling, your consider the selection of compact, two-way speakers with a single 8" woofer is a bit surprising. You did not mention anything like this but did you plan on having subwoofers or some other low frequency devices in addition to the mains? You also have apparently selected the amplifiers before making a final decision on the speakers when the amps, both models and quantities, are typically selected based on the speaker system used. And you did not mention any system processing, an element in both equipment and application that could be critical to the success of the changes.

Maybe you just did not go into detail on these other aspects, but if it is instead that you have not considered them then maybe you should indeed get some help from a qualified professional.

[sparrow]

reply. I gave sparring details as to other equipment. Included are Behringer 31 band EQ's with feedback detection and Behringer compressor/limiters- on mains and 3 aux outputs. Thought the JBL compacts had a good frequency range and coupled with a good subwoofer would provide for the full audio spectrum. 3 JBL splayed horizontally together (haven't checked with JBL if these speakers are designed for horizontal arrays) might be a better option providing appropriate horn sizes are available to minimize overlapping. Have considered Myer 2-way horizontal arrays. The seating sanctuary has no obstacles to interfer with sound projection. I know that amps have to match speakers used and changes will be made if necessay. I am of the opinion that a central horizontal array woukd be beter in terms of providing a central sound source and providing less comb-filtering problems. What are your speaker preferences in this application?

[Esoteric]

Yeah, I would say get a professional to model it and submit a bid.

Mike

[Chkurgrnd]

And stay away from Behringer if at all possible... you'll find out why in the long run